Category Archives: New England

It’s been 100 years since Joseph Archibald Query created the magic that is FLUFF in his kitchen in Somerville, MA and sold it door to door.

He didn’t invent marshmallow. He just repacked and renamed it for immortality.

7 millions pounds of Fluff

were sold last year.

There is a recipe contest at the Fluff Festival..I’ve been thinking of Fluff….

I was reading Laura Shapiro’s What She Ate

In the introduction (no, she doesn’t mention Fluff….bear with me) she writes of Nell B. Nichols who published a food calendar in Woman’s Home Companion. For May 7, 1953 Nell offers a recipe that dips peanut butter sandwiches in an egg-milk batter and then fries them. That’s right – Peanut Butter Sandwich French Toast. And I thought….

FLUFFERNUTTER

FRENCH TOAST

That baked French Toast that I made a variation of, has been on my mind. My brain has been full of all kinds of bread and egg and milk things.

But, before I have a recipe to test, I have a few more thin gs to ponder. Like – what bread? It has to hold up, but fluffy white bread is classic for a fluffernutter…and maple syrup wouldn’t be assertive enough on top…..

Chocolate syrup on top would be better then maple. √

Or how about chocolate BREAD….now it’s officially dessert…and chocolate syrup doesn’t go on top of chocolate bread.

page from The Brown Derby Cookbook, probably the 1949 edition – here are several versions of the Brown Derby and it’s cookbooks

One way to remember the ingredients:

EAT COBB

Eggs + Avocado + Tomato Chicken + Onion + Bacon + Blue Cheese

I recently had a Cobb Salad that was a variation on the theme. It was made with radicchio instead of greens, which was a little too warming for a summer salad, but for an autumnal one…..Mmm Mmmm Good!

And it was chopped up nicely. Somewhere in the 21st century we’ve forgotten that salads are eaten with forks in public places and that they’re supposed to be ready to eat and not need more knife work.

This version also had roasted butternut squash and turkey instead of chicken and dried cranberries, a Plymouthy version. Good, and got me thinking about a few more tweaks. I’d do chopped radicchio as the base, great color, nice change from KALE (hasn’t the clock ticked past that by now????)

Anyhow – turkey instead of chicken – but a roasted turkey. A roasty flavor would help here. Maybe toss a turkey breast in while roasting the butternut squash.

Now that the nights are cool – last night was downright COLD – a little “toss a sheet pan of something in the oven” action is NOT out of the question., and if it helps to stave off another night of not turning the heat on…more power to that!

I might use fresh cranberries, once they once they come in, instead of dried. Blue cheese. Hard boiled eggs – easy. Bacon? No hardship there. I also have managed not to start a jar of bacon grease, so get a jar ready….I’m going to go with black olives as the O…..I just don’t like raw onion, and since it doesn’t like me right back, we’re even on that score.

What have a got so far?

Egg + A…….+ Turkey Cranberry + Olive + Bacon + Blue Cheese

Hmmmm – What the A?

A stands for Apple!

Rene Magritte 1964

If I make an Apple/Maple dressing, a little chopped apple will temper it, give the sweet to go with the rich/spicy/…apple cider vinegar, chopped apple, maple syrup and a touch of oil….

The temptation to ‘pumpkin spice’ this is nearly overwhelming, but I’ll try to resist.

Flip-flops.

Even in places where flip flops aren’t the best choice. Like anyplace that isn’t a beach.

You can hear them coming. And going. Without looking at feet, you know what’s on them.

Flip-flop.

So while the girl was asking, “Have you ever heard of a drink called…..a flap?” I was hearing flip-flops.

I asked her if she meant

“Frappe”

And she smiled real big and said, Yes, THAT’S it!” and her sister got closer, and her Mom and there were others and it was hard to tell who was together-together and who was just together as in there in the moment together.

So I describe how a frappe was a milkshake with ice cream, and if they ordered a milkshake ‘round these parts, they were likely to get shook milk, no ice cream.

Her sister asked, “But where’s the

RUM?”

Flip-flop. Flip-flop. Flip-flop.

Yo

Both girls were under the age of 12 so rum drinks weren’t what I first thought of when this line of questioning began, and then I remembered….

“FLIP?

Are you asking about Flip?

Now everyone was smiling and nodding….

Now, thanks to Paula Marcoux I know from flip.

Beer, rum, molasses, hot poker, done.

I know oodles of other things from her, too, but flip and rum had come up recently, and put her in my thoughts, and memories of flips past…. in the way rum drinks do here in New England. It’s not exactly flip season here, with temperatures and humidity both in the high ‘80’s, but no season is truly far from another here in New England, so soon enough it will be flip appropriate time.

illustration fro Rum: A Global History

I had recently been flipping through Mrs. Child’s (Lydia Maria, not Julia) “American Frugal Housewife”, the way one does in the food history biz.

I was (and still am) wrestling with the differences/different-name-for-the-same-thing conundrum between flapjacks, slapjacks and flatjacks. In short, sorting out the Jack branch of the fritter family.

Which started with Johnnycake and Hoe Cake, and is detouring through Pancake, with short stops in Griddle Cake, Mush Cake and Corn Cake……

While looking at pancakes, and I saw this:

Pancakes

“…A spoonful or two of N.E. rum makes pancakes light. Flip makes very nice pancakes. In this case, nothing is done but to sweeten your mug of beer with molasses; put in one glass of N.E. rum; heat it till it foams, by putting in a hot poker; and stir it up with flour as thick as other pancakes.”

Paula’s has directions for flip (with a photo step by step) in Cooking With Fire. And she has notes on these pancakes in the appendix, where she recommends adding a pinch of salt and an egg. And cook them in bacon grease. All good.

I’m still thinking about rum in pancakes……with blueberry pancakes and cinnamon? With rum butter? Are these supper pancakes rather than breakfast pancakes?

So I told the girls about flip pancakes, too.

And then I wondered – what sort of New England Colonial Educational Experience was this family on that involved Flip? Cause that’s the field trip that I want to go on.

I have more RUM books then I thought – all that Living Proof at Plimoth Plantation

aliases.

Why??? Why, are they ashamed of being corn? Or is the fritter part too frivolous? Do they just want to be taken more seriously? Or is it role-playing, cos-play for fritters??

They are also known as….

Corn Oysters

CORN OYSTERS

Mix well together one quart grated sweet corn, two tea-cups sweet milk, one tea-cup flour, one tea-spoon butter, two eggs well beaten; season with pepper and salt, and fry in butter like griddlecakes. – Mrs. H. B. S.

-1877. Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping. p.35.

Eastern Oysters

They do not taste particularly oystery, these fritters of CORN. They taste fried, like the fried part of a fried oyster, but only someone who has never had an oyster, or never been near an oyster or had ever spent any amount of time imagining oysters would be fooled.

Mock Oysters

MOCK OYSTERS OF CORN.

Take a dozen and a half ears of large young corn, and grate all the grains off the cob as fine as possible. Mix with the grated corn three large table-spoonfuls of sifted flour, the yolks of six eggs well beaten. Let all be well incorporated by hard beating.

Have ready in a frying-pan an equal proportion of lard and fresh butter. Hold it over the fire till it is boiling hot, and then put in a portion of the mixture as nearly as possible in shape and size like fried oysters. Fry them brown, and send them to the table hot. They should be near an inch thick.

This is an excellent relish at breakfast, and may be introduced as a side dish at dinner. In taste it has a singular resemblance to fried oysters. The corn must be young.

Grunt, Buckler, Crisp and Crumble. Add some Cobblers and Pan-dowdies. Betties. We mustn’t leave out the Betties. These are the Goldie-Oldies of the fruit and butter and flour, baked in a dish but not quite a pie, classic New England treats.

These ‘Olde-Thymie’ treats just aren’t as oldie as they like to pass themselves off as. But, since they’re now nearing their centennial….well, I guess they’re old at last!

Welcome to the Colonial Revival! When the New Fashion was to be old-fashioned even though you’re new…..Old Days Old Ways the way they never were…rather like the Bi-Centennial…..we just never stop reinventing the past.

Orchard House circa 1940. Home of Louisa May Alcott in Concord MA – this is where she wrote Little Women. She nicknamed the house “Apple Slump”.

I can’t remember not knowing cobblers, and crisps and crumbles…..and knowing there was some extensional difference between them even if I couldn’t articulate it.But I remember quite clearly when I first heard about Apple Slump – The summer between third and fourth grade.

The Christmas before Aunt Eileen (Grampy’s only sister) had given me several brown paper bags FULL of books. She felt it was important to have books on hand, before you thought you could be ready for them, lined up and ready for you when you were ready for them. Chapter books. Book with more words then picture books. And one of them was :

And – I’d seen the movie! Twice!

The Katherine Hepburn one….

and

the 1949 version with June Allyson

I’ve since seen the 1994 – of course!

Hello Winona and Susan Sarandon

Anyhow, I must have looked Louisa May Alcott up in the encyclopedia…that’s a big set of books we used to go to to find stuff out before the internet…..and found out that she called her house Apple Slump.Actually, the house was named Orchard House – Apple Slump was it’s nickname. A house with a pet name!

The first food Apple Slump reference is in a Salem MA newspaper 2 years before Louisa’s birth

20 November 1830, Salem (MA) Observer, pg. 2, col. 3:
The pumpkin pies and apple slump, bacon and plum-pudding, were smoking on the table, when the old gentleman, gathering round him his smiling guests, said grace in the following manner: “May God bless us, and what is provided for us.”

The White House Cook Book was first released in 1894, and was updated regularly.

TO THE

WIVES OF OUR PRESIDENTS,

THOSE NOBLE WOMEN WHO HAVE GRACED THE

WHITE HOUSE

DEAR TO ALL AMERICANS,

THIS VOLUME

IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

BY THE AUTHOR.

In between the recipes and household hints there are portraits of the first ladies…..all of them up to 1900 in this 1901 edition.

There are also menus for the whole year, of breakfast, dinner, and supper suggestions for each day of a week for each month of the year, as well as special whole day holiday menus.

New Year’s Day has a menu, as does Washington’s Birthday (which includes Washington Pie for dinner, but also English Pound Cake for supper…)

July begins with a

FOURTH OF JULY.

BREAKFAST.

Red Raspberries and Cream

Fried Chicken 86. Scrambled Tomatoes 196.

Warmed Potatoes 186. Tennessee Muffins 245.

Toast 268.

Coffee 487.

DINNER.

Clam Soup 46.

Boiled Cod 68., with Lobster Sauce 150.

Roast Lamb 136. With Mint Sauce 152.

New Potatoes Boiled 183.

Green Peas 201.Spinach with Eggs 202.

Cucumbers Sliced 167

Chicken Patties 85

Naple Biscuits 343. Vanilla Ice-cream 357.

Chocolate Macaroons 358. Strawberries.

Coffee 437.

SUPPER.

Cold Sliced Lamb 134.

Crab Pie 69. Water-cress Salad 168. Cheese Toast 264.

Graham Bread 234. Sponge Cake 277.

Blackberries. Tea 439.

p. 468 White House CB

I was interested to see Green Peas and New Potatoes for the Fourth, as well as Boiled Cod with Lobster Sauce, even though it’s not quite Poached Salmon and Egg Sauce…..

But wait –

are those

MACAROONS

for dessert at dinner?????

Macaroons again? You spend some time with a recipes, and it turns up EVERYWHERE

Although this time in chocolate….

Chocolate Macaroons

PUT three ounces of plain chocolate in a pan and melt on a slow fire; then work it to a thick paste with one pound of powdered sugar and the whites of three eggs; roll the mixture down to the thickness of about one-quarter of an inch; cut it in small, round pieces with a paste-cutter, either plain or scalloped; butter a pan slightly, and dust it with flour and sugar in equal quantities; place in it the pieces of paste or mixture, and bake in a hot but not too quick oven.

Thick chowder is key – as are hot and crisp Fries. Frozen will not do. This might be my Summer go out for dish.

The spud on spud left my Irish heart happy.

Here’s what may be the first chowder recipe in print.

Boston Evening Post on September 23,1751.

First lay some Onions to keep the Pork from burning
Because in Chouder there can be not turning;
Then lay some Pork in slices very thing,
Thus you in Chouder always must begin.
Next lay some Fish cut crossways very nice
Then season well with Pepper, Salt, and Spice;
Parsley, Sweet-Marjoram, Savory, and Thyme,
Then Biscuit next which must be soak’d some Time.
Thus your Foundation laid, you will be able
To raise a Chouder, high as Tower of Babel;
For by repeating o’er the Same again,
You may make a Chouder for a thousand men.
Last a Bottle of Claret, with Water eno; to smother ’em,
You’ll have a Mess which some call Omnium gather ’em.

Just the kind of read to unwind a busy work week on the Friday of my weekend.

(That sounds rather convoluted, but since week-ends are considered Saturday and Sunday, but I work Saturday, so my not at work days are Sunday and Monday….which makes Tuesday my Monday and Thursday my hump day and Saturday my Friday. So, SATURDAY, I read this book on Saturday night.)

And there were several cooking/eating/ food scenes in the book, because that’s the way Spenser is and that’s how Robert B. Parker writes. I remembered, back in the day when the books had been a TV series called Spenser for Hire

Robert Urich was Spenser

and a pretty good stand in for Robert B. Parker

Complete aside: Season 3 – that was 1987 – they filmed a Thanksgiving episode. Which include scenes shot at Plimoth Plantation.

All three seasons are available on DVD

Season 3, Episode 7 Thanksgiving

First Aired: November 29, 1987

Spenser takes Susan to Plymouth for Thanksgiving and runs into an old Army buddy whose down on his luck. When his friend, Mike Kaminsky, is accused of murdering the young wife of an elderly philanthropist, Spenser tries to prove him innocent. As Susan looks after the Kaminsky family, Spenser and Hawk search out the shifty background of the murder victim, and deal with the controversy conscious step-son. Attempts on Spenser’s life ultimately lead he and Hawk to the those responsible.

Someone (actually, quite a few of us) got to come in early to be pilgrim ‘extras’. Should you watch said episode and see a pilgrim with a dead goose?

MOI.

But my 15 seconds of fame is a story for another day.

Since the series was called Spenser for Hire, I thought the companion cookbook should be called

Spenser for Dinner

Because of course, there should be a cookbook.

Back to Bad Business.

At the very beginning of Chapter 46, Vinnie is cooking up sausage and vinegar peppers…..

But any pickled pepper could work in this…

So I checked out the North End Italian Cookbook, and sure enough – sausage and vinegar peppers with potatoes.

Sausage and Vinegar Peppers and Potatoes

2 # Italian sausage

1/4 cup olive oil

6 large potatoes, peeled, sliced thick and wiped dry

6-8 vinegar peppers

Brown the sausages in the oil. Remove from the pan.

Add the potatoes to the oil , turning till cooked and crispy.

Add the sausage back and then tear the peppers on top, letting the juices fall in with the meat and potatoes. There will be steam when he vinegar hits the pan, so be careful.

Turn off heat, cover and and let rest 5 minutes before serving.

The note in the cookbook says hold for a second day, but I’ve made some stellar fritatta…..just saying.

adapted from pages 103-4

For Italian food from Boston, any one of the editions of North End Italian Cook Book will be your friend.

Still not the thick layer at the bottom I remember, the layer of soggy grape-nuts….

Savour has a version that promises the bottom layer….

December 19, 2007 Saveur

serves 6-8

Ingredients

1 cup Grape-Nuts cereal

1 qt. milk

4 eggs

1⁄2 cup sugar

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

1⁄4 tsp. fine salt

Grated nutmeg

Instructions

Heat oven to 350°. Grease a 2-quart glass loaf pan with 1 tsp. butter; set aside. Put cereal into a bowl; set aside.

Bring milk just to a boil over medium heat; pour over cereal and set aside to let soak for 5 minutes.

Beat together eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt in a large bowl. Slowly pour egg mixture into milk mixture while whisking constantly. Transfer to reserved pan; set in a deep roasting pan. Pour enough hot water into roasting pan that it reaches halfway up pudding pan. Bake until just set, about 1 1⁄4 hours. Let cool; sprinkle with grated nutmeg.

But now that Spring has finally come, and the weather is in the 70’s, the last thing I want to do is turn on the oven and fuss with a water bath – even calling it bain marie doesn’t make it more attractive.

Pea shoots, micro-green salads, pasta with seasonal pestos, eggs with greeny things….It’s still April; there’ll be a day for custard before May.